


Paper, Man

by CookieCatSU



Category: Bull (TV 2016)
Genre: Benny likes paper, Cable - tech wizz that she is - is incredibly smug about that, Cable and Benny friendship, Epic Friendship, Friendship, Gen, that's all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25813222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieCatSU/pseuds/CookieCatSU
Summary: Call him old fashioned, but Benjamin Colón is still rather fond of his paper.Cable doesn't know what's wrong with him. Other than the fact he's old, that is.
Relationships: Benny Colón & Cable McCrory
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Paper, Man

Benny recognized the great advancements that came along with technology. He understood that a lot of the luxuries they had today, like cable tv and groceries delivered to your door, would be impossible without the advent of this technology. They all depended on it, and he could appreciate that. 

Heck, the backbone of TAC was built upon motherboards and super computers and servers housed 76 miles away. They wouldn't be able to monitor jurors and collect information and secure sentences without it.

Regardless, Benny himself was still a proponent of good ol' pencil 'n paper. Call him old fashioned, but He preferred the feel of the crinkling pages in his hands, the faint weight of his blue ink pen between his fingers, the scratch of his pencil as he took notes, all more tangible and real than a glass computer screen with nothing but pixels behind it. Papers could be seen and filed away, touched, and burnt, and crumpled into a tiny, compact little ball to be chucked away. Computer files hardly afforded the same versatility. 

His paper brought him comfort.

Cable gives him an odd look, as she gazes at where he sits, hunched over a legal pad with a freshly sharpened lead pencil in his grip. The utensil is smooth and cool with it's glossy, orangey coating.

"Why do you always do that?" She asks with a furrowed brow. He startles, having forgotten he wasn't alone in the room, and looks up at her with a confused, 'huh?'

Cable has been with them a few weeks. They'd been searching for a computer technician, and finally they'd found one that could meet their standards, their needs, in the form of a 20-something year old hacker. A rebel and a criminal, Benny determined, before the interview was even over, one who didn't belong anywhere near a law firm.

"What kind of name is Cable, anyway?" He'd asked Bull with a huff, glaring at the application as if  _ it _ was guilty of some crime.

Yep. Benny was definitely dubious at first (they upheld the law, maintained justice, while she spent her time ferreting money and coding viruses and stealing identities and whatever else basement level hackers did). But Bull was determined to hire her, the criminal, the hacker, determined that she'd 'surprise him'. And surprise him she did.

A man saved from the electric chair, thanks to nothing other than Cable's awesome computer skills, which allowed them to throw together a quick defense with the information scavenged from the cyber dregs of the interwebs. He promptly admitted his mistake.

She'd leveled him with one of those looks, that said she'd always known he'd come around to her way of thinking, eventually.

"Still think hacking is for spineless chumps?" She asked late that same evening, face bright with the LCDs of her computer monitor, a half smirk forming.

He shook his head and laughed. She got the job done, got it done better than anyone before her, in fact, and at the end of the day, that's what mattered. Regardless of how he felt about the… legality, of how she went about it, she did a darn good job.

The look on her face said she already knew.

She had spunk, and she was tenacious; Benny loved to see that in new recruits. So maybe, just maybe, Benny liked her a little more than the others (he too had to pull himself up by the bootstraps, had to make a name for himself with nothing on his side but a thick skull, a sharp wit, and his own, bull headed determination. He'd been that poor Puerto Rican kid, scrawny and hungry, looking for something more. That kid with too much attitude, and not enough knowledge, and with his sights set too high). He recognized that youthful  _ hunger _ for  _ more _ , in her eyes, desperate and unmoving, as the same as his own.

His thoughts of her quickly shift, at that point.

She nods toward the paper he was scribbling all over, half cursive and half not, all of his brain simply barfed out in some semi cohesive order.

He blinks at her, before letting out a laugh, "This is how I collect my thoughts"

What did it matter, anyway? Was it so weird to record one's thought processes.

"No, I mean the pencil and the paper" When no understanding dawns on his face, she huffs, "You're surrounded by computers, like, all the time, so why still use paper?"

Benny never liked computers, to be completely truthful. He never had one as a kid, never used one all throughout college, and he didn't need one now.

Besides, writing, actually writing, helped him to think. He gazes at the paper. Scribbles down another key point to his defense as it comes to him.

"I always do" is his half distracted reply.

Cable's smile is teasing and smug.

"And you look up words in a dictionary, right? And read your news in the paper?"

"As a matter of fact, I do... and when I need to figure out a new word, I use a thesaurus"

"God, Your so old fashioned. It's like your still living in the fifties" She grins smugly at the thought

He shrugs, "And I know about five people below the age of 25 who know how to read a clock, so I think we're even"

"You're showing your age, Mr. Colon" Cable quips lightly.

"Well, I'm not trying to hide it, dear Ms. McCrory"

Her face crumples into a peeved little scowl.

"Just Cable is fine, please and thank you. You make me sound ancient"

Benny just grins mischievously, right back at her.

* * *

"Hey Cable, it's uh… been a while, hasn't it?" Benny murmurs softly, gazing down at the headstone, smooth white marble, cool to the touch. 

A few tears well, mixing with the mist that falls down upon him. A purple orchid is placed tenderly amongst the other bouquets heaped before him.

Then he stands, hands pressed in overcoat pockets, and waits. For what, he isn't exactly sure.

Perhaps for it to feel less wrong?

"You were supposed to be the one visiting me, once I was six feet below. Not the other way around" He says, and he cracks a weak little smile, laughs too, but it's not the same.

* * *

"I'll have to teach you the true benefits of technology one of these days, old man" Cable exclaims cheekily, gazing at him from behind her computer screen.

Benny rolls his eyes, but he's grinning, wide and easy.

"That doesn't sound half bad. Might even surprise me. One day"

And he goes back to scribbling across his legal pad.

  
  



End file.
